I spent the beginning of last week in San Francisco checking out CrimeCraft, where we learned all about the new payment model being adopted by the game. To encourage more people to play, Vogster is opening up an unlimited free trial for anyone to play the game. You’ll earn experience at a much slower rater and won’t be able to equip as many weapons and boosts, but it’s a great way to see what’s up in the world of CrimeCraft. Check back soon for my full impressions of CrimeCraft and the press event from last week.
A dual tiered subscription model is also being put into place for those who want a bigger experience in the game world. For $4.99 a month, you’ll get more customization, weapons slots, etc. than the free trial, and for $9.99 a month you’ll get the full package. It’s an MMO shooter, so it’s not too bad in terms of pricing. You’ll be on a month-to-month basis, so you can seamlessly move between the free and paid packages at any time.
To go along with the new pricing, a big content update is coming later this month. To see all the goods, hit the jump for the full list.
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In the already crazy announcement strewn lead up to E3, Firefly Studios dropped some knowledge about their new MMO, Stronghold Kingdoms. In what is looking like a decent concept, players will build in their own villages, castles, and kingdoms in a persistent online world. Learn to farm, or make catapults, or run the church. Sounds like a medieval SimCity except you can invade other players cities. I like it.
To many young gamers, the name Interplay is not one they are too familiar with. You actually have to blow some dust off the history books to find their last major new release. The only way some people may know of Interplay is their legacy titles which have recently been re-released or reborn, such as games like Clayfighter, Earthworm Jim, and Baldur’s Gate. All classic titles which personally ate up many many hours of my life, and that doesn’t even begin to break the ice on Interplay. They have released many famous and great games like Descent, the flight simulator which I used to play until I got motion sickness or until my computer unceremoniously crapped out giving me the blue screen of death. Descent went on to spawn its own sequel and spin-offs in Freespace, an award winning title which has been repeatedly modded into high quality award winning mods. Alone in the Dark you should at least be familiar with, it’s fifth installment was recently released in late 2008, now from a different developer/publisher, but it was the original that set the tone for the horror genre and serving as inspiration for titles like Silent Hill and Resident Evil years later. Interplay also managed the Star Trek franchise for something like 7 titles. Earthworm Jim was a hit platformer that became a TV show. Baldur’s Gate is a classic, award winning RPG, which was the start of the series under its namesake and other spiritual successors.
But the crown jewel in the Interplay coronet all started with a little RPG called Wasteland. A survivor of a nuclear holocaust wandering the Wasteland, the title turned out to be considered one of the best games of all time and was heavily influential on another hit for Interplay… Fallout, now I have your attention young ones. Yes, you may recognize this title if you put a “3″ at the end of it. Interplay is the birthplace of Fallout.
At a quick glance all indicators point to a kick ass, highly successful game company, right? Dead fucking wrong. Yes Interplay has rocked some amazing titles which have taken more hours of my life than I care to count or admit, but they have been something of a shit show behind the scenes which disqualify them from being considered a highly successful game company. Now as a heavy disclaimer, I am not criticizing Interplay or it’s management. It is not easy to run a business, or turn one around, especially in this day and age and in the industry we hold so dear. I actually hold Interplay and it’s team in high regard for keeping the ship sailing where many others would have sunk. Now that is out of the way I’m sure some flames will pop up, but oh well, onwards.
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I recently saw this article online about a computer game addict attempting suicide and I had to dig a little deeper. I mean, who in their right mind would swallow pieces of a saw blade in an attempted suicide over video games? Well folks, there is always more to the story.
A 23-year-old named Xiao Cai had recently been admitted to a hospital in an attempted suicide. He ingested pieces of a saw blade over a two day period. Later on, during the second day, he wasn’t feeling very well and called for help, but this wasn’t the beginning of his mental instability.
According to his uncle, Xiao Cai had been addicted to the Internet for at least a few years. He had attempted suicide in the past by ingesting sleeping pills and pesticides, but each time he had been saved. His uncle also had this to say,
“If it wasn’t because of his introverted personality, perhaps he wouldn’t be so addicted to the Internet.”
It just goes to show you that these events aren’t always as perceived. The man had social issues well before online gaming took control of his life. The media needs to properly report on such events so the facts don’t get skewed. This isn’t my defense of online gaming, just my opinion on being responsible in general. To end on a good note, Xiao Cai is currently in stable condition.
Did anyone not see this coming? Bioware and LucasArts yesterday officially announced Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new MMO set it in the Star Wars universe. Think of it as a KOTOR MMO, something we’ve all been clamoring to get our grubby little hands on for quite a while.
In Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Players can choose to play as Jedi, Sith, or a variety of other classic Star Wars roles, defining their personal story and determining their path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way, players will befriend courageous companions who will fight at their side or possibly betray them, based on the players’ actions. Players can also choose to team up with friends to battle enemies and overcome incredible challenges using dynamic Star Wars combat.
Sounds like a plan to me. Hopefully the system requirements won’t be outrageous. I don’t feel like buying another gaming rig for this one in a year or so.
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The minds behind the ever-popular and still growing Lord of The Rings MMORPG, have confirmed that they are discussing and starting the process a MMO for consoles. This would be an awesome idea because there are plenty of gamers out there who want to get into a MMO, but don’t have the CPU requirements or are not going to buy PC games when they have $2500 tvs and surround sound set-ups.
We’ve hired over 60 people since the beginning of the year,”… The people that invested in us, Time Warner… one of the media giants, getting into the MMO fold, and that’s obviously a big deal… They also have a huge distribution network… that may bear fruit for us.
Expect much more on this once some details are confirmed. Turbine is an awesome developer and there constant free upgrades to LOTR make them a frontrunner in gamer/developer relations. We are much looking forward to more news on this.
And the ballsiest statement of the month award goes to Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley. In an interview with GameDaily, Smedley had this to say when asked if the PS3 would get an MMO game to rival World of Warcraft:
“I absolutely do [think we'll see that], and in fact I think by having a stable platform where every customer has an online capable box is a huge, huge potential advantage in building an MMO because you’ve already got an online userbase. It’s a massive advantage over the PC and we don’t have to worry about graphics cards or things like that. It’s going to be very big. Console online gaming in general I think is going to be one of the next huge phases of growth in the online gaming space.”
Ummm, I just don’t think it’s going to happen. Console gamers aren’t going to buy the game and then pay a $15 a month subscription fee to play online. Console gamers want to play Halo or Call of Duty and shoot people in the head, not for guilds and party up to take down a goblin horde. Just my 2 cents… I don’t think it’ll ever happen.
At Digital Life this weekend, we got a chance to sit down with Adam Mersky of the development team at Turbine who works on Lord of the Rings Online. We talked about the general aspects of the game as well as new features in the upcoming Book 11 update.
If you’re not familiar with the game, Lord of the Rings Online allows you to immerse yourself in the Tolkien universe as a member of one of the main races in the game. You interact through a storyline that takes place during the Lord of the Rings books. You’ll get to meet up with Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and even Gandolf. The game is much more about exploration than player vs player combat, unlike many other MMO’s out there.
Adam walked up through the updates in Book 11 and what we can expect from the game in the coming months. The update will bring housing to the game for yourself and your kinship. You’ll be able to settle down in a town with your kinship and create your own house and yard and decorate it to your pleasure. Each player can own one house, but anyone in the world can visit your home. You can give other players permissions to make changes in your house, so don’t be surprised if you come home and find your walls a different color. The options for changing the interior of your house are very simple, and each element can be changed on a room by room basis. You can add many different types of furniture and artwork to each room. If you want to add a stone troll head on your wall as a trophy, it’s there for you to put up. Pricing for housing and different items will be determined in the next few weeks as development wraps up on the update.
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Way back in the day at E3 2007 (yeah, I know it wasn’t that long ago), Sony announced a partnership with NCSoft to bring their MMO expertise to the PS3 and PSP. Today, NCSoft games some of the details on how they expect to accomplish that in a discussion with CVG.
“We haven’t announced any of the titles we might be bringing out, but whatever we bring out, the one thing I can tell you is that, even if they’re some intellectual property we already have, they’ll be things that’ll be very carefully created for the console experience, not merely a straight port”, NCSoft exec producer Richard Garriott told us when we caught up with him at this week’s Develop conference in Brighton.
“We found even back in my Origin days that direct, unadulterated ports weren’t very successful compared to games that you make sure are really crafted correctly for the console experience”, he added.
I’m glad they aren’t going to just throw ports of City of Heroes and such. Richard Garriott is right on the money: gamers would rather have a customized version to make proper use of the PS3 instead of a straight port of the PC versions of their games. Either way, I think NCSoft will do a great job in bolstering the MMO community on game consoles.
There’s a new website up for Sony Online Entertainment’s new MMO, The Agency.
You can click in a couple places to get more info on the game, specifically the US and Africa, which are the headquarters of the two factions in the game, being U.N.I.T.E. and ParaGON, respectively. I’ll let you guess which one is the good guys (hint: they’re in the Western Hemisphere).
Along with that cool info, if you click on the bullet next to the game logo, you can sign up to be considered for membership in one of the Agencies. Now, this very well could be just for email newsletters. But more importantly, most are speculating that you’re registering for a beta of the game. Here’s hoping for a beta invitation on this one…
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